Now In Australia: Yellow Owl Workshop!

Look at how cute that muslin baggie is!

Well this is very exciting for all of us stationery fiends, the long neglected and overlooked fans of the well designed, functional and aesthetically amazing stuff we call paper goods.

Original correspondence sets - love the engraved pencil.

Yellow Owl Workshop, a boutique San Francisco group of expert paper goods merchants is now easy to find in Australia! We used to covet their rubber stamps from afar via their official website, but learned yesterday that NoteMaker now has almost the full range ready and flying out the door for all of Australia to enjoy.

Hand painted Acrylic on wood is so cute!

And we're not the only excited party - the Inside Out Blog is on to it as well, digging on the ceramic sculpture range!

They even make Ceramics! This 1970s inspired Polaroid is so cool!

I could go on for a while about how much I love the look of Yellow Owl, but I'll just let the products themselves tell you all about it.

News from the Field: Moleskine new editions!

Moleskine is unquestionably one of the world's biggest names in notebooks and stationery and has possibly the biggest following of any one brand. And why not? The Moleskine notebook format is so simple, clever and useful and everybody loves a little black book.

Rather than rest on their laurels, however, Moleskine continues to change and stay fresh. Here are a few recent updates we've found scanning the net.

1) Moleskine Limited Edition 2010 Diary: Marti Guixe

We posted this a couple of weeks ago and love the limited edition design. The fact that the design on the patent leather editions is now to change every year makes these all that more special - a good way to track time. The good news is, Australian release is coming up shortly! Nothing confirmed yet, but the guys at NoteMaker have told us that they will be getting them soon enough!

Moleskine Museum Notebook

2) The new Moleskine Passions

Via Moleskinerie, the whole purpose of a notebook, the reason we love to journal has been distilled by Moleskine, articulated in a new Passions range. The New Moleskine Passions is a collection of six different journals to record and recall memories, thoughts and notes about six different passions: Recipes, Wine, Book, Film, Music and Wellness. Can't wait - although as always, we Australians inevitably will have to!

3) Moleskine Detour 2009: Tokyo is underway!

Again via Moleskinerie, the Moleskine detour exhibition is underway in Tokyo - possibly the world capital at the moment for design stationery. Check out this video of the opening night as well as Moleskine's Youtube page for more!

One of Van Gogh's Letters

4) Moleskine Museum Collection & Van Gogh's letters

The Moleskine Museum notebooks are a mainstay, special edition notebook in honour of one of the Moleskine's most famous users, Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh's letters have now been published online in an amazing format. Check it out and partake of some artistry, beauty and history.

New Notebook! Zap by Clairefontaine

The leaders in sustainably produced paper, French manufacturer Clairefontaine, aren't just famous for their beautiful, world class paper but also their environmental credentials.


You can read their environmental commitment at NoteMaker, but basically the whole process, from managing the forestry from which the paper is sourced, to dealing with the waste of the process (eg: Clairefontaine's mill produces 80% of it's own power) is dealt with in house.


This ensures not only top quality and control over production, but most importantly, it makes Clairefontaine responsible for their actions and it is only by facing the indirect (often overlooked) costs of production that one can reduce them.


Their environmental flagship is 100% recycled paper, taking 106kgs of refuse and diverting it away from landfill and incineration and into 100kgs of beautiful paper.


Zap Books are chunky, page generous (320 pages per book) recycled books from Clairefontaine and perfect for sketches, notes and jotting. Available in 4 assorted cover colours, Zap Books feature 80gsm recycled plain pages and are in 3 sizes.

News From the Field: Seoul Power!

MMMG Stitched Journal

After a bit of a lapse between updates here at Field Notes we are glad to be back with some news direct from Seoul, Korea - a design stationery haven as yet untapped by Australia and indeed most of the west.

MMMG Hardcover Drawing Book

The attitude towards stationery and design all over Korea is a bit different to here in Australia, with ubiquitous love of stylish, functional and unique designer stationery. Like fashion in Europe, appreciation for gorgeous stationery is mainstream.

O-Check Wooden Ruler thanks to NoteMaker

Still conceptualised and produced by small inventive firms, yet adored by the masses: that's our kind of market!

Pansy Daisy Notebook!

Any stationery lover could find suitcases worth of cool stuff to bring back home, where it would be totally unique.

Pansy Daisy Notebook!

The king of Korean stationery, O-Check Design Graphics, is available in Australia but there are seriously cool up and coming brands, like MMMG and Pansy Daisy which are still unavailable to us.

O-Check Colour Pencil Set thanks to NoteMaker

Some of the Field Notes team are off today to New York City so keep an eye out for posts straight from the Big Apple about stationery and design straight out of the epicentre of the West.

Scanning the Field: Time for a link list!

So much to do, so much to see! I could tell you about how much I love an O-Check journal, I could tell you about this cool page Deviant Art I recently stumbled upon and I could even tell you about the Melbourne Writer's Festival and some all new Moleskine notebooks. I could mention my favourite blog this week - The Journal of Little Mo & Friends - and the coolest hand made gift box ever!

But it's like they say...no matter what you're trying to say, somebody else has already done it better! With that in mind, check out some of the links below and drop a comment to share the cool stuff that you can't quite articulate as well and help fill the void at spot #10!


1) Heidi & Seek lovin' O-Check journals


2) My Life as a Sugar Lander lovin' this too-cute Train Blanket


3) Deviant Art's queenvera wondering about what's really going on inside our heads...


4) A caption competition for the Melbourne Writer's Festival!


5) NoteMaker has Moleskine Folios! They're big and beautiful!


6) The Journal of Little Mo & Friends! So cool, especially this gift box.


7) Biffybeans (albeit old...) review of a Rhodia Meeting Book. So thorough, amazing as always.


8) Hello Sandwich thinks we should all indulge in our inner kid and play with our food!


9) Retro Sticky Notes at UK institution Papernation!

10) ...

Blog of the Week: Simple + Pretty

One of our favourite blogs is Simple + Pretty, a beatiful little collection of pretty paper and pretty things put together by paperphile and all round holder of great taste Jane.



The blog covers all the most gorgeous and effortlessly practical bits and pieces to do with paper, fashion, design, living and photography as well as the miscellaneous yeet worthy of mention.



It's almost therapeutic to have a look through all of the wonderful pieces Jane brings us - and the site is updated so frequently that you can always get a fresh fix for your simple + pretty cravings.



We were super happy to see our favourite site NoteMaker receive some attention about their re-launch, love this cool congratulations card and really want to receive one of these too!

All images via the lovely Simple + Pretty

So keep your eye out for Simple+ Pretty if you like to relax and take in some of the nicest, cleverest things on the web.

Blog of the Week: Inside Out Blog!

Image Courtesy of Inside Out Blog

The Inside Out Blog on a Monday morning here at Field Notes is a ritual...a cup of coffee, a chat about the weekend and check what's going on at Inside Out.

Image Courtesy of Inside Out Blog

The place for staffers of Inside Out Magazine to happily reveal a few of their favourite things is full of a variety of awesome bits and pieces. A beautiful, eclectic range of topics and tidbits, interviews, news and links to heaps of cool stuff.

Image Courtesy of Inside Out Blog

Check it out! It may be a Wednesday today, but I'm sure you can fit it in to any routine you could think of!

Image Courtesy of Inside Out Blog

Some of our favourite recent posts are a nice review of some cool furniture and design pieces from Workshopped 09, a tour of Grace Lee's desk (remember Grace Lee? She's the brilliant designer of NoteMaker's Limited Edition 2010 Moleskine Weekly Diary) and an interview with paper artist/brilliant genius (!) Benja Harvey.

Image Courtesy of Inside Out Blog

InsideOut Blog - giving we Aussies some awesome local and international design, style and comfort on a Monday morning!

News From the Field: Rhodia and the new Diary Wars!

Big news right before the weekend drops for all you lovers of organisation! The legendary French icon Rhodia is launching a diary for 2010! This is big, big news for those of us who have always loved and gone straight to our Moleskine diary...or a big decision rather.


The tried and true, the exalted Moleskine? or the up and comer, the cocky young Rhodia? We all know Rhodia have been making amazing stationery (just try a Bloc Pad) for 75 years but this is their first go at a diary, which has been made in conjunction with Rhodia's sister company and diary/planner icon Quo Vadis.


Frankly, we can't wait to try it out. There are two sizes, a weekly notebook format (using graph paper for notes, instead of ruled lines), address book, tear-off corner page markers, 90g clairefontaine paper! in the large size and, with no shortage of audacity, an elastic closure. It's not available yet, but our sleuths have told us that Australia will definnitely have access soon!


Moleskine must have known this challenge was coming - their diary range keeps expanding with inventive new formats and consistent quality and style, but this really is a big challenge for the Moleskine diary stronghold.


So duck for cover because the big guns have come out! Diary tragics, we'd love to hear which way you're thinking of going for 2010...So, who's side are you on?


And if you're a lover of the idea of organisation, but just can't keep it together, our friends NoteMaker have some handy work smart organisation tips!

Field Notes Icons: Carrie Chau

Not everybody may know the name Carrie Chau, but we absolutely love the Hong Kong illustrator/graphic designer extraordinaire.


We found this interview with the eccentric Carrie where she talks both about herself (a self-proclaimed alien!) and her work (which i proclaim to be equally out there!).


Her personality definitely comes through in her artwork and the various products which showcase it. Totally unique, quirky, cute and touching. There is a sensitivity to her characters - a kind of endearing vulnerability - which reminds us of the cute little things you see at the zoo.


Her exhibitions have ranged from canvas displays to over-life-sized 3-d sculptures and her product range has gone from mugs, to figures, dolls and our favourite - stationery!


It's really beautiful stuff with the same heart warming aesthetic as we mentioned earlier.


Carrie has an online store and official website you can click through to for all of her work and products. Aussies can try the great Remedy Online Store for a whole range of beautiful Carrie quirks! But if you're just after the stationery, maybe try NoteMaker who have just received this new range.


Gift boxes, pencil cases, gift bags, notebooks, exercise books, lever arch files! Oh my...can't Christmas just hurry up already!? Best of all, paper fiends like us really really love it for it's (environmentally conscious) Clairefontaine paper stock.


Some of the world's best paper meets some of the out-of-this-world's best design and illustration. Lovin'!